


Things Unknown

by afewmistakesago



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, no happy ending, this is a sad story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afewmistakesago/pseuds/afewmistakesago
Summary: Gideon and Belle cope with the loss of Rumplestiltskin.[The Lumineers' “Gun Song” is about the lead singer and his father. He realized his father was really gone when he found a gun in his drawer and could not ask him why he had it.]





	Things Unknown

The last two weeks of Gideon Gold’s life were a blur. It was going to the pawn shop, accepting condolences, and taking the cards with moderately heartfelt messages inside them, wondering if his mother would ever read them. It was taking casserole after casserole, but knowing he and his mother would heat one up, pick at it a little, and then dump the whole thing in the trash. In his twenty-four years, he had never seen Belle look as weak as she did now. She had always bragged about not having a single gray hair, but now she seemed older, frailer, sudden silver strands in her long brown hair. Since his father had died, it was like she was a shadow of her past self. He wondered if he’d ever see her really smile again.

_ His father. _ The great Rumplestiltskin, supposed to be almighty and immortal, a force to be reckoned with. In the end, it turned out being stabbed in the chest by an old enemy, bitter from a decades old grudge, would do him in. Rumple had been leaving the shop when he was attacked, quickly found by a horrified passerby who called the Sheriff. The new Dark One was being held in the basement of the town hospital, the Sheriff in possession of his dagger, and Gideon hoped he would never see the light of day. 

He had moved back in with Belle a day after it happened, when it was clear she would not be able to drive herself home from the hospital after Doctor Whale shook his head and told them that Rumple was gone. It was like his life had been moving in slow motion since then, like a strange haze was clouding his vision as he arranged funeral plans and went to the service, hardly paying attention to what Archie said. Gideon wasn’t sure how long his mother would need him to be with her to remind her to try and eat and cope with daily life. She had indefinitely closed the library, sick with shock.

In a way, Gideon knew he had yet to accept his father’s death. He kept expecting him to be in the shop’s back room, fiddling with one antique or another, or waiting in the living room when he walked in, ready to talk about whatever Gideon felt like discussing. It hadn’t hit him yet that his father was really gone. It felt like Rumple had gone on a solo vacation, and he’d be home soon enough. “Mum,” Gideon called, setting down today’s stack of cards down on the kitchen table. “I’m home.”

Belle appeared, seeming small and mousy in her oversized robe. “Hi, Gid,” she greeted weakly, sitting at the kitchen table slowly, like her bones ached. “You would think everyone would have already told me they were sorry by now,” she said, flipping through the stack of cards.

“I put a casserole in the fridge from Regina.”

“Lasagna?”

He nodded. Belle’s mouth twitched. “He would have liked that.”

Gideon bit his lip, unsure what to say next. He had never seen a love as strong as the one his parents had, and he knew she felt like she was missing half of her body. It had to be worse for her than it was for him. She couldn’t even pretend things were fine, the way he had decided to. “I’m going to warm it up,” he said, and she didn’t reply, just traced the outline of her name on one of the cards.

When he came back with two paper plates and a slice of lasagna for each of them, he found his mother crying, throwing a card across the room. She seemed angry, pushing all the cards off the table, burying her head in her hands as she shook with sobs. “Mum,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “Mum. It’s okay. I’m here.”

Belle beat her hands against his chest. He hadn’t seen her this upset yet, but let her crash her fists against him. “I’m just so angry at him,” she said, out of breath, her eyes rimmed with red from crying.

“Angry?” he asked, sitting down, scooching his chair close to her. She held his hand tightly, and he stared at her, willing her to say more. He felt like she’d barely spoken fifteen words in the last two weeks.

“I’m mad, Gideon. I’m furious at Rumple. I’m so angry I could scream.”

“You can scream if you need to.”

She shook her head. “I can’t, because I feel so guilty for feeling mad.”

He tried to think about the pamphlets Archie had slipped him on the stages of grief. “Why are you mad, Mum?” he asked softly.

“Your father spent three hundred years avoiding death and he couldn’t do it for one more damn day. It’s not right.”

She was silent then, a lost look in her eyes. Gideon shifted, waving his hand on the table. “I made us tea.”

Belle smiled weakly, reaching for the steaming mug. “You remind me so much of him. You have -”

“His eyes. Yeah. Everyone has told me that this week,” he said, looking down at his own mug, absently stirring sugar into his tea. What good was having his father’s eyes? He wasn’t him, he was just Gideon, son of the most powerful Dark One to ever live. He was always going to be in the shadow of his father.

“We had an agreement. Your father and I.”

He turned to look at Belle, wondering what she meant.

She took a deep breath, like she wasn’t sure she should tell him whatever was coming next. “He was immortal, but when I hit the same age physically as him, he would perform the spell to end the immortality. He would become a normal mortal, like you and I. We were going to grow old together, die naturally. That’s probably a terribly morbid topic to discuss with your husband, but it was all agreed upon. It would have been next year. We were supposed to do everything together, damn it,” she said, tears slipping down her cheeks again.

Gideon nodded. It made sense, really, that his father wouldn’t want to outlive his wife and son. He hadn’t known about that agreement, but they probably would have told him whenever they deemed it necessary. His mother reached up and put her hand on his cheek, studying her son’s face. She got up, taking her tea with her to her room, and he felt dismayed as he noticed she had only had one bite of her dinner. He may have to contact Archie about home visits.

The next day, he was ready to go to the shop and assume the space his father had left again. As he got ready, he realized he was missing a pair of socks. Irritated, he went to his parent’s room. He could hear Belle in the shower down the hall, and he was glad she was taking care of herself. He went to his father’s dresser, finding a nice pair of black socks. In his search, he felt something hard and cold. Frowning, he moved the socks around and found a gun. A pistol.

He picked it up slowly, staring at it. Gideon had never known his father to own a gun. Why would he need one, when he had magic? Suddenly, he desperately wished his father were there so he could ask him. He turned around, half expecting to see his father reading in the rocking chair his parents had moved from his childhood nursery to their bedroom. Instead, he was faced with an empty room, gun in his hand. It suddenly became real that he would never speak to his father again, never ask a question and get an answer. He would never get another home-cooked meal or a silly rhyme in a birthday card. He would never see his father concentrate on a difficult task, or smile. His father would not attend his wedding or see any children he might have. “Rumplestiltskin,” he whispered, remembering something he used to do as a child.

“Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin,” he repeated, each time louder than the last. He threw the gun back down in the drawer. Something in him felt suddenly shattered, and he allowed himself to cry for the first time in weeks. There was no magical solution to this, no way to snap his fingers and fix the emptiness he felt . He was weak and powerless, frustrated and heartbroken all at once.   Belle rushed into the room, hair still wet.

“Gideon,” she said, trying to still him. “Gideon, stop.”

“If you say his name, he’s supposed to show up,” Gideon said, eyes blurred with tears. “He’s always shown up before.

“I know, baby,” Belle said, reaching her arms around his shoulders and holding him tightly. “I know.”

“He’s gone, mum,” he cried into her shoulder, feeling ridiculous. He was a grown man, hunched over, getting tears and snot all over his mother. “He’s gone and I miss him and I hate this.”

“Me too, kid,” she whispered, letting him cling to her. “I was wondering when you would crack.”

They sat down on the bed, holding each other. “You’ve always been an emotional boy,” Belle said, wiping a tear from Gideon’s cheek with her thumb. “I was surprised by the front you were putting on. I knew you were hurting, too.”

“I guess I wanted to be brave for you,” he admitted. “I didn’t want you to worry about me. I thought if I acted like I wasn’t upset, if I just went through the motions…”

“I always worry about you,” Belle said, shaking her head. “You’re my son, it’s my job. It’s okay to cry, Gid. It’s okay to feel sad.”

“Or mad,” he said and she smirked a bit. 

“Any emotion. Maybe we should visit Doctor Hopper, and figure out how we move on from here. As a family. But for now, it’s just going to absolutely suck,” she said plainly.

“It’s like something’s been ripped from my chest.”

“I have actually had my heart ripped from my chest, and I think it may be less painful to just have it removed than feel what I feel right now,” Belle said. He sometimes forgot that Storybrooke had been a much more dramatic place before he was born.

They were silent for a moment, and then Belle stood. “Why don’t you shower, and we’ll go out for a walk? Skip going to the shop today. I need to move my legs, I’ve hardly been out of bed recently.”

“Yes, mum,” he agreed, feeling the onset of the headache one gets after crying.

“And take two ibuprofen, too,” she said as she left the room. “I know tears take it out of a person.”

He shook his head, smiling to himself. It was like she could sense his thoughts, the premonition only a mother had. After a breakfast of toast and eggs, they went outside, walking through their quiet neighborhood. “Look,” Belle said, pointing at the sky and stopping.

Gideon looked up, realizing a bright rainbow was in the sky. “Pretty,” he said, wondering why she seemed so excited to see it.

“It’s a sign,” Belle said.

“From papa.”

“From your papa,” Belle agreed.

They were silent for a moment, admiring the rainbow. “Things will look up soon,” Belle said, “He’s trying to tell us that. Rain would make me sad, and he always pointed out that after a storm, we get something beautiful like a rainbow.”

“I hope he’s right. I wish he was here.”

“Me too, Gid. But he’ll always be in our hearts.”

“Always.”

That was hardly good enough, but it was what it was.


End file.
